That was a real stupid thing you did to your wrist, kid. If you really wanted to kill yourself, you would have run the blade lengthwise inside your forearm. Instead, you cut across the wrist and instead of dying, all you did was make a mess.

Because you’re not on the midnight train to the big sayonara, you must have failed to Google your suicide method of choice. My guess is that you really didn’t want to die. You just wanted a little bit of attention.

I got news for you, kid: not a whole lot of people really care if you check out or not. That’s the cold, hard truth about life. It goes on with or without you.

Yeah, I know you think you’ve got it tough. I ain’t gonna say that you don’t. I’d feel pretty low, too, if my pops was a three-strike loser doing life in the can and my mom was an ex-prostitute junkie with AIDS. But hey, life ain’t fair. The Man Upstairs might have dealt you some shitty cards, but it’s up to you to make the best of them.

If you’re gonna check out, go ahead and check out. Do us all a favor next time and do it right. But if you’re gonna stick around, knock it off with all the drama. Your attention whoring is costing other people time and money.

Tags: blood · google · suicide

Recently, I was asked for my thoughts on the death of a young man named Mike Cho. Cho was gunned down by police officers in La Habra, Calif. The only information I had at that time was that Cho made an attempt to strike the cops with a tire iron prior to his expiration.

It sounded like a righteous shooting to me.

I’ve since had some time to find more information about the shooting. Here’s what I’ve learned so far (from words and video): on December 31, 2007 at approximately 2 p.m., police officers were responding to a vandalism call. A surveillance video showed two cops tactically deployed behind the open doors of a police vehicle. The suspect (Mike Cho) walked towards them with a tire iron in his left hand, and a cigarette in his right. Police said that they ordered him to drop the tire iron. Instead, Cho turned approximately 90-degrees to his right and walked away, off camera. Both cops lowered their guns and followed. Off camera, Cho raised the tire iron over his head in a striking position. In response, police officers shot him a total of ten times.

There have been a lot of questions as to why the police did what they did. Why did they have their guns drawn? Why did they have to shoot the kid ten times? Why didn’t they use a taser or some other less-than-lethal weapon?

The answers to those questions are so blatantly obvious (and have been answered in other forums) that I won’t go into them here. Instead, I have questions of my own: why would you approach two guys with a tire iron in hand, especially when their guns are leveled at you? Disturbing to me is the manner with which Cho approached the two cops, puffing on his cigarette. Slowly. Deliberately. Like he didn’t give a fuck. Why? Was Cho on drugs? Was he crazy? Did he commit suicide by cop?

My thoughts on the death of a young man named Mike Cho, for what they’re worth: it was a tragic death, but one the suspect brought upon himself. Unless some new information is released that will sway my opinion otherwise, I’d say that the shooting was righteous.

Note: Check out the Los Angeles Times for an article about the shooting. A Korean language news source showed surveillance video of Cho’s encounter with La Habra police, moments before the shooting. A clip has been posted on YouTube.

Tags: death · la habra · michael cho · police · shooting

It seems that you can’t go anywhere without some type of advertisement being pushed at you. When you take a piss at the bar, they make sure there’s an ad right in front of your face. You leave the bar and catch a cab home. There’s an ad on top of the cab. Or maybe you feel like riding the bus. The bus and the bus stop are both big freaking advertisements.

Perhaps the bar is not your thing. So you go to the movies. You pay ten (or more) bucks, but they still subject you to commercials. You pay an outrageous sum of money for popcorn and drinks, and ads are plastered all over the packaging.

Me, I figured I’d go work on my farmer’s tan at the beach. Besides all the trash cans with movie posters plastered on them, I figure I’ll have a relatively ad-free day. But that was not the case. Now they have low-flying plane advertisements to obstruct your view of the beautiful blue skies.

When will they stop the insanity?

Tags: advertising · beach

It would really suck to die with your pants down. It would be one thing if your pants had been completely removed from your body. But if they were down around your ankles it would be like, as the idiom goes, you got caught with your pants down.

Wearing “tighty whiteys” would most definitely compound the humiliation. As would drawers with “pretty” colors. I could talk about guys who die wearing women’s panties, but I don’t want to digress, because usually those guys are not wearing pants at the time of expiration.

Maybe this is why cool underwear is so freaking expensive. It’s like insurance for if you ever get caught with your pants down. Especially if you happen to expire at some inopportune moment.

Tags: death · underwear

Recently, a good buddy of mine and I were discussing world events, especially all of the religious madness going on these days. We spoke about the proliferation of Islam, and about how some say that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.

My friend theorized that the reason Islam is growing so fast is because Christians don’t know how to sell their religion. After all, there are Muslim extremists out there that are telling young converts that if they become a suicide bomber and take out a bunch of Jews or Christians, they’ll be rewarded. They’ll die, of course (which really sucks). But in exchange, they’ll get hooked up with 72 virgins in the afterlife. Compare that with the Christian offer of an afterlife of chilling out with some old white guy with a long white beard.

Perhaps these zany evangelical Christians (who keep popping up where they’re not wanted) need to come up with a more compelling offer than the one being offered up by their extremist Muslim competitors. They need a better pitch.

The zany evangelical Christians could double the offer in some really slick infomercials (”The competitors are offering 72 virgins. We’re going to double that offer!”). For sure, they’re going to need a special bonus for those that call right away (”But wait! Call now, and you’ll also receive this added bonus!”). And, of course, they’ll need to offer a free gift, just for trying their product (”Yours to keep, absolutely free!”).

Now, all they’d need is a pitch man. My vote is for Tom Vu. The girls in his infomercials didn’t look all that virginal, but they sure did help sell his product!

Tags: christianity · infomercials · islam · religion · tom vu